Key points
- Executive function is essential for life success, helping us to plan, behave, and make decisions optimally.
- Executive function skills develop indirectly through content: by participating in other engaging activities.
- Music education promotes these skills by kindling inhibitory (self) control, leading to greater life success.
Ellen Galinsky is a leading educational researcher who has spent more than two decades studying how children learn and thrive
She has numerous credits to her name: She is the president of the Families and Work Institute, a senior research advisor to AASA (the school superintendents association), and has collaborated on research with the Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab.1 Among her many books, she has authored Mind in the Making, about early childhood learning, and The Breakthrough Years, which focuses on adolescence
Executive Function: Skills That Matter
About 25 years ago, Galinsky’s research led her to realize that “… [the] children [who were] most likely to be learning and thriving were developing a set of crucial skills.”2These neurocognitive (brain thinking) skills are known as executive function skills
Renowned neurologist Antonio Damasio defines executive function as mental processes that allow us to plan, follow social rules, manage our time, and make smart decisions.3
In Galinsky’s eyes, these mental processes include four key components:
- Cognitive flexibility: The ability to switch gears and adapt to changing situations
- Working memory: Holding and processing/using information in your head short-term
- Inhibitory control: Resisting impulses, staying focused, and delaying gratification
- Reflection: Evaluating your responses to situations and challenges to optimize future responses
Far from being “soft skills,” Galinsky stresses that executive function skills are essential for success in life. She notes there are numerous studies showing that executive function skills help children—and adults—succeed now and in the future. According to Galinsky and other experts, these skills are, in fact, some of the best predictors we have of lifelong success, affecting everything from academic achievement to physical and mental health and future wealth
Can Executive Function Be Taught?
Executive functions underlie all intentional thinking and largely take place in the prefrontal lobes.4 These brain regions show significant growth during early childhood and adolescence, which is when executive functions are most malleable and educable
How can one teach executive function skills? Galinsky states: “Executive function skills … don’t develop separately from content. They develop through it.”5In other words, these skills are best learned in the context of everyday situations and develop through “far-transfer effect,” meaning they are built indirectly through practice while participating in other engaging activities. For example, a lecture on paying attention will not succeed, whereas playing a sport and being often reminded by a coach to “keep your eye on the ball” helps lead to paying attention better.
Another example is playing Simon Says, a game that develops attentional skills. Simon Says is a good example of a “go/no-go” task, challenging the participant to keep the rule in mind for when to go (i.e., to do what’s said) versus when not to go (i.e., to refrain from doing what’s said). So important is the ability to pay attention that, citing research by the late Clancy Blair, Galinsky states, “He found that children’s ability to pay attention as well as to shift their attention were the best predictors of their cognitive function at ages six, ten, and twelve.”6
What About Music’s Role in This?
Does music education help to develop executive function skills? As opinion is mixed, let’s first look at the general consensus regarding the social and emotional benefits of music education
Music education fosters socialization/getting along with others. One way music does this is through entrainment—multiple people syncing their efforts to create a communal piece of art. As the late Sandra Trehub remarked, “Making music together is simultaneously building a community together, which is considered by many to be the most adaptive and most evolutionarily significant aspect of musical experience worldwide.”7
Another way that music contributes to socialization is by fostering close listening to what others in the group play or sing. Jazz musicians note that this is particularly the case with improvisation: It’s not enough to play your solo part; you also need to build on what others in the group are adding.8 A third example of socializing children through music is Derrick Tabb’s Roots of Music program in New Orleans, which combines music education with preserving the Crescent City’s unique musical culture.9
A second broad area of agreement about music’s benefit regards maintaining mental health. Music is a powerful tool for emotional regulation. In fact, “One of the main reasons people give for listening to music is to experience or modulate their emotional state.”10 In collaboration with the International Arts + Mind Lab, Galinsky studied a group of students ranging from 11-24 years of age, who reported that regular opportunities for creative self-expression—such as making music—are important for maintaining their mental health. Interestingly, most of these young people pursue this independently or through informal groups; slightly under a quarter participate in a formal, organized program.
Executive Function Essential Reads
The Power of Developing Executive Function
Don’t Shop Right After You Run a Marathon
Returning to the question of whether music education improves executive function, research results are mixed, tending to hinge upon whether one regards nature or nurture as the principal determinant of executive function skills. Overall, there appears to be agreement that music education improves inhibitory control
Boosting Inhibitory Control
One group of researchers views nature as the principal determinant of executive function skills. While stating “the evidence that music training causes non-musical benefits is weak or nonexistent,” they grant that “positive findings were observed for inhibitory control.”11
Another group views nurture as the primary driver of executive function development. They write that a “review of the available literature suggests a beneficial effect of music training in core executive function performance, primarily in inhibitory control…”12
Independent research on the proprietary program at Kindermusik also revealed findings that support music’s benefit for developing inhibitory control.13
Inhibitory control translates into being better able to take turns, self-regulate, and delay gratification—all traits that lead to greater success throughout life
The Bottom Line
Regarding music’s impact on executive function skills, Galinsky points out that, going forward, research needs to include how music is taught to draw more precise conclusions
With respect to executive function skills in general, she notes a clear takeaway for educators and parents: We must weave these competencies into everyday, real-world learning. “The good news,” she says, “is that we increasingly know how to promote executive function skills: with repeated practice, where supportive adults help children name the skill they’ve learned in the past or look ahead and identify the skill they’ll need, and to focus on mistakes as data for learning. These experiences need to involve all students, not just those who struggle.”14
1. For more information about these organizations, visit familiesandwork.org/, aasa.org/, and artsandmindlab.org/, respectively
Special thanks to my long-time (since high school!) friend, Jay Goldman, editor of AASA’s magazine, for connecting me with Ellen Galinsky
2. Galinsky E. “How I Discovered the Importance of Executive Function Skills and Their Connection to Music.” In Resonant Minds by Sara L. Sherman and Morton Sherman, 2024: 3
3. Damasio summarizes executive function as one’s ability to plan for the future, to conduct oneself according to learned social rules, and to decide on courses of action that will be most advantageous to one’s survival. Paraphrased from Damasio A. Descartes’ Error. 1994: 33
4. “Pre-frontal” refers to the regions of both frontal lobes that are forward of where the motor system is situated
5. Galinsky E. “The Breakthrough Years for Executive Functioning.” School Administrator. March 2026: 19
6. Galinsky E. “How I Discovered the Importance of Executive Function Skills and Their Connection to Music.” op. cit., 9. Clancy Blair (1960-2024) was a psychologist and professor of cognitive psychology
7. Trehub S et al. “Cross-cultural Perspectives on Music and Musicality.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 2015: 4–5. Sandra Trehub (1938–2023) was a researcher who pioneered the study of music neuroscience in children
8. Shaw M & Bales K. What You Learn Learning Music. 2026, in press
9. I described this program in my January post: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/music-between-your-ears/202601/…
10. Molnar-Szakacs I & Overy K. “Music and Mirror Neurons: From Motion to ‘E’motion.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 1;2006: 238
11. Schellenberg E & Lima C. “Music Training and Nonmusical Abilities.” Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2024. 75:87–128
12. Rodriguez-Gomez D & Talero-Gutiérrez C. “Effects of Music Training in Executive Function Performance in Children: A Systematic Review.” Front. Psychol. 2022. 13:968144. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.968144
13 “[T]hose children who were currently enrolled in Kindermusik (regardless of age) showed better self-regulation than those who were not currently enrolled.” Winsler A et al. “Singing One’s Way to Self-Regulation: The Role of Early Music and Movement Curricula and Private Speech.” Early Education and Development 22;2011: 290
14. Galinsky E. The Breakthrough Years for Executive Functioning. op. cit., 19–23
